


outside control

by stupidloud



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Character Study, Family, Keith's Mom - Freeform, Leadership, Love, M/M, Meaningful Capitlization, Shiro's A Meme And That's Okay, Trust, i guess idk, it's a lot of keith rambling and thinking about the team
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-05
Updated: 2017-10-05
Packaged: 2019-01-08 08:01:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12250302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stupidloud/pseuds/stupidloud
Summary: as you got older there were days of cold surrenderdays of shrugged whateversfolded in with days of shocking splendor◆I never had the opportunity to love like this. to choose who I put my trust in.





	outside control

**Author's Note:**

> i was listening to a playlist to warm up to write for ANOTHER fic and i just started writing this. keith is interesting. i have literally seven docs open from months ago and finish THIS that i JUST STARTED before all of them. kill me. i might do a series of these now, for everybody. lmk if it's a good idea.
> 
> the playlist is: https://8tracks.com/transkeithkogane/without-backup
> 
> the song i used for the title and the quotes is Talking To Myself by Watsky

_as you got older there were days of cold surrender_  
_days of shrugged whatevers  
_ _folded in with days of shocking splendor_

 

 ◆

i tried, you know? even though i fucked up, even if my Team isn’t really behind half the shit i do, i _tried._ i didn’t use my brain most of the time—

i guess… I didn’t really try, did I?

look, i didn’t ask to be leader. i—i _prayed_ i wouldn’t become leader, because, _fuck_ i couldn’t be Shiro, and that was exactly what i would have to fucking do. they had him, and _i_ had him, and he was good. he did the shit he was supposed to.

here’s the thing, i think with my heart not my brain, and my heart’s an angry motherfucker. the only time my brain interferes is when he looks at me like i should know what i’m doing isn’t right, tells me what i did wrong and how to fix it. but my heart still comes a-knocking because his eyes are so, so blue and _you want to tell him, you_ want _him—_

~~did he want me?~~

god, that wasn’t even priority. it’s fucked up. all of it.

we’re fucking _teenagers._ Pidge is a goddamn _baby_ as far as i’m concerned, and Shiro still doesn’t even know how to cook a chicken, which is a weird way to measure adulthood, but it seems right.

Shiro came back, but he didn’t. it’s different than last time. sometimes, if he comes into a room too fast, or i see him out of the corner of my eye, i don’t see my brother. ~~that’s not my brother.~~

it has to be though. _it_ _has to be Takashi._

They love me. my Team loves me, and it’s strange, it’s powerful to be loved by so many people at once and spend all your time with them.

Shiro’s my brother. he’s replaced my shampoo with hair dye and i have a wall of pictures of him making stupid faces. he got drunk on his twenty-first birthday and told me i’m one of the most important people in his life. he told me again sober. he has a tattoo that says _eat my shorts_ in japanese on the back of his left thigh. Matt has a matching one in italian.

Hunk asks me to cut up vegetables while he cooks. he enlists me as his assistant during repairs and teaches me the names of all the tools, and i can’t remember a time i’ve laughed so much, not with anybody. he doesn’t believe in grey areas and blatantly told me my skin was greasy and i should wash it. he was born in honolulu and has two moms.

Pidge sits in my room until we pass out debating all the far out theories stuck in the nooks and crannies of my brain after a year isolated from society, matches my dry humor with her own. she talks to me about Matt and speaks fluent italian. we’re a whole person tall stacked on top of each other. she told me she wants her hair to grow out and curses constantly.

Allura… i understand. we sit sometimes, and we don’t really talk, but we have a silent agreement. we’re a lot more alike than not. she’s beat me in more sparring tournaments than i can count on one hand. i help her braid her hair and she does mine.

Coran helps me maintain my Lion. he understands my concept of personal space, even if he thinks it’s unnecessary. he’s kind of crazy and i’d run my bayard through anybody who even threatened to threaten him.

Lance is my right hand man. he celebrates in spanish and slings his arm around my shoulders as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. he can shoot a sentry going fifty from across the room, upside down, in pitch darkness. he has a loud laugh and quiet affirmations and eyes like the sky. our fourth raid after the switch, when we’re running back to our Lions, he threw this _smile_ at me and said _he thanks our fearless doofus of a leader for getting us all out in one piece._

without exaggerating, i fell in love with him then.

which is stupid and childish, love, i never thought i’d love anybody that way. especially when i didn’t even know if the person _liked_ me. but i’m stupid and childish, i’m an idiot, and i love him.

i love him.

when i told him, he kissed me and _then_ asked, _wait, holy shit, what?_

and it helps having one less thing to worry about, even if it’s thousands more things to worry about. but i’m still fucked.

i’m so fucked.

because i’m keith kogane, i can’t be Takashi Shirogane, i’m not even fully _human_ , i can’t remember my mom’s _name_ and i’m supposed to be able to determine the paths of the lives of all these people i fucking _love._

it was easier being a goddamn hermit, i can tell you that much.

i can tell you i tried, and i’m trying.

i…

I’m doing it.

and I’m not alone. not anymore.

the whole trust thing is still… sometimes i wake up and i think the castle’s going to be empty, or this whole thing was a dream.

i’m back in my cabin and the only person that stuck with me has been abducted by freaking aliens. and it turns out i was the alien all along, so chew on that philosophical shit for a while.

i don’t even know where i’m going with this.

I never had the opportunity to love like this. to choose who I put my trust into. i trusted my mom and my dad because they were my parents, and kids don't think about the fact that people have lives outside of them. sometimes light years away.

mom left. 

she left me that knife and took my ability to trust, because a part of my dad went with her, and I couldn't fucking forgive that.

she left, she took, but she won't define me.

I'll be a terrible leader, but it's not because she ruined me or some shit, it's because I'm just not leadership material. I will be imperfect, and I'll screw up, I'll get angry and I'll hurt the people I love, but I won't fucking leave them. I have their trust and they have mine and I won't take off with it because I fucking love them.

I won't be the greatest.

I can't be.

not even Shiro was that good. but I'll be myself, I'll determine myself.

I'll run around the castle with Pidge on my shoulders, I'll let Hunk ramble to me when he has too much on his mind, I'll sleep in Lance's bed and kiss his forehead when he has a nightmare because, goddamnit, I love them and I'm not going anywhere. I'm not leaving them. and...

and they're not leaving me.

so fuck it.

I'm Keith Kogane, paladin of the Black Lion and leader of Voltron. I'm part galra. my mom left when I was two, my dad died when I was nine, and I have the best fucking family anyone can ask for.

signing off.

 ◆

 

 _there were these pure arresting moments when you stepped outside your head_  
outside your pain outside control,  
_outside the bullshit,_  
_out of body, out of rage_  
outside the need to get it,  
get it,  
you will never get it, that’s okay

**Author's Note:**

> idk what I mean this to be? I think kinda like the vlogs except not. they're talking to something, i guess, pero...  
> i like the format. i'm keeping it for this.  
> lmk if i should continue, i probs will either way, but i like validation.


End file.
